s were
called in to resist the Roman oppressors. Armenia, was, in fact, too
weak to stand alone, and was obliged to lean upon one or other of the
two great empires upon her borders. Her people had no clear political
foresight, and allowed themselves to veer and fluctuate between the two
influences according as the feelings of the hour dictated. Rome had now
angered them beyond their very limited powers of endurance, and they
flew to Parthia for help, just as on other occasions we shall find them
flying to Rome. Phraates could not bring himself to reject the Armenian
overtures. Ever since the time of the second Mithridates it had been a
settled maxim of Parthian policy to make Armenia dependent; and, even
at the cost of a rupture with Rome, it seemed to Phraates that he must
respond to the appeal made to him. The rupture might not come. Augustus
was now aged, and might submit to the affront without resenting it.
He had lately lost the services of his best general, Tiberius, who,
indignant at slights put upon him, had gone into retirement at Rhodes.
He had no one that he could employ but his grandsons, youths who had not
yet fleshed their maiden swords. Phraates probably hoped that Augustus
would draw back before the terrors of a Parthian war under such
circumstances, and would allow without remonstrance the passing of
Armenia into the position of a subject-ally of Parthia.

But if these were his thoughts, he had miscalculated. Augustus, from the
time that he heard of the Armenian troubles, and of the support given
to them by Parthia, seems never to have wavered in his determination to
vindicate the claims of Rome to paramount influence in Armenia, and to
have only hesitated as to the person whose services he should employ
in the business. He would have been glad to employ Tiberius; but that
morose prince had deserted him and, declining public life, had betaken
himself to Rhodes, where he was living in a self-chosen retirement.
Caius, the eldest of his grandsons, was, in B.C. 2, only eighteen years
of age; and, though the thoughts of Augustus at once turned in this
direction, the extreme youth of the prince caused him to hesitate
somewhat; and the consequence was that Caius did not start for the
East till late in B.C. 1. Meanwhile a change had occured in Parthia.
Phraates, who had filled the throne for above thirty-five years, ceased
to exist, and was succeeded by a young son, Phraataces, who reigned in
conjunction with t